Please Note: The headlines below are the original headlines used in the publication cited at the time they are posted here, and do not reflect the stance of the Water Education Foundation, an impartial nonprofit that remains neutral.

The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) and State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) have released a final version of their summary document on the water conservation bills made into law in 2018. Senate Bill 606 (Hertzberg) and Assembly Bill 1668 (Friedman) will improve water conservation and drought planning to help prepare California for longer, more intense droughts caused by climate change. The summary (called a primer) was designed to be a reference document for implementation of the complex 2018 legislation.

The fire has burned about 150 square miles, including about 83% of national park land in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, a stunning loss of a cherished open space for Southern California. … Several of the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District’s facilities were damaged, including a composting facility and a filtration plant in Westlake.

Researchers with UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Princeton University recently walked back scientific findings published last month that showed oceans have been heating up dramatically faster than previously thought as a result of climate change.

For the past week, California has been locked in a tense, daily mix of choking thick smoke and dangerously dry, windy fire-weather conditions. But an end might be around the corner. Meteorologists said Tuesday that two storm systems appear to be developing over the Pacific Ocean, with rain increasingly likely next week for most of the state.

President Trump took to Twitter to blame bad forest management. Gov. Jerry Brown pointed to climate change. Their arguments about the cause of disastrous wildfires roaring across the state have turned a California catastrophe into the latest political cudgel in the ongoing slugfest between Washington and Sacramento.

The Carlsbad City Council voted 4-1 Tuesday to support a request for an additional six-month delay before the county’s regional planning agency chooses a course for the restoration of the Buena Vista Lagoon. “This is not going to hold a project up,” said Mayor Matt Hall. “I see more upside to the continuance than a downside.”

With four weeks remaining until the State Water Resources Control Board plans to take final action on a river-flows plan affecting the northern San Joaquin Valley, water users are working to negotiate voluntary agreements.

Plastic is versatile, lightweight, cheap — and seemingly everywhere. It’s also a scourge on the environment. While plastics have important uses, the bulk of plastic waste — much of which ends up clogging landfills and polluting oceans — comes as things designed to be used exactly once, and often for only a few minutes.

The Mission Springs Water District’s newest board member, Steve Grasha, has tweeted at Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, that the senator should shoot himself in the head and that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio should be beheaded.

One of the great wildlife spectacles in California — the arrival of 10 million ducks and geese, along with unbelievable millions of shorebirds, raptors and songbirds — is under way at the marsh wetlands in the Sacramento Valley and the Bay Area. The peak migrations on the Pacific Flyway started last week.

When the next major storm hits Monterey County, Caltrans will take a proactive safety approach by shutting down Highway 1 along the Big Sur Coast at two trouble spots. Gates have been installed at Mud Creek, where more than 5 million cubic yards of dirt and rocks slid down the hillside and covered a quarter mile of the roadway with as much as 40 feet of debris in May 2017, and at Paul’s Slide.

Welcome to the world of artificial intelligence in service of conservation, where some of hardest working additions to a research team aren’t the lead scientists or interns but tireless computers. Just as artificial intelligence (AI) powers Amazon’s Alexa, Gmail’s spam filter, and Facebook’s new friends suggestions, it’s now being used to help out the animal world.

California voters have rejected Proposition 3, the $8.9 billion water bond, sending a message to politicians. But what is that message? It can’t be that the state’s water problems have been solved. They haven’t been. It can’t be that Californians don’t care about water. Poll after poll shows we do.

Fast burning fires, aided by strong, east winds and low humidity, devastated the Butte County community of Paradise over the last week and sent hazardous smoke over the San Francisco Bay area. It’s a tragedy that’s becoming too frequent. Climate change is scorching California. It’s critical for water agencies to adapt to this hotter and drier future.

Fall on the Yuba River is extraordinary. Donner Trail Elementary is steeped in environmental education and nestled next to the Yuba River, and we take full advantage of the opportunity to study the river, its riparian environment, and the importance of exposing students to their habitat.

Bright and shiny Late fall Chinook salmon are being caught on the Sacramento River in the Capital City region — and more are on their way. Fishing has been up and down lately, with good fishing one day followed by tough fishing the next.

At the October meeting of Metropolitan’s Water Planning and Stewardship Committee, members were presented with an overview of the proposed Drought Contingency Plan for the Colorado River Basin which has been in negotiation for the last several years. Since last month, the draft agreements have been finalized and shared throughout the seven states in the Colorado River Basin.